Other Ways
by MissSlytherpuff
Summary: Sometimes they made different decisions, sometimes they stayed the same. They married other people, they had different children, they lived different lives. They went other ways. But how it came out all together, that was incredible to those who knew it differently. Half AU, canon and non-canon, two different realities from the moment the Battle of Hogwarts ended.
1. Chapter 1

_Hey there, I'm back! Yep yep, I am._

 _Er, not that I had something to finish here for it to be evident that I was away, but still._

 _This is an idea I'm playing with, and this the prologue to it. Since I've got school and I spend my days worrying my head off about a guy I seem to like very much, this could either prove to be the perfect distraction, or the other things will become a distraction from not only my life and each other, but to this. I'll try to find the place in the middle, but we'll just see where it goes._

 _Yeah, I'm also contemplating changing my name to MissSlytherpuff, because I've just recently accepted the fact that I'm really not a Gryffindor, but a mix between Slytherin and Hufflepuff. So yah, I'll probably be doing that._

 _Also, RETROSPECT, WHEN EVERYTHING IS ALRIGHT!_

 _Cheers,_

 _Miss-still-Slythedor_

 _Other Ways_

 _Prologue_

Lily's eyes glinted with interest. She leaned further over the kitchen table and looked at her brother.

„So theoretically, there is another, totally different Lily standing right here, next to me, you just can't see her." James said in a hushed, clever voice. His dark, almost black hair was messy, dissolving nearly entirely with the darkness above his head and his glasses danced with the little fire of the candle that was between them.

„But why can't we see her?" Albus asked, his chair all the way to the wall from the table as he leaned on it.

Both Albus and Lily looked at James expectantly.

James, who was already basking in the delight of having the upper hand in a situation, let a slow, cryptic smile spread across his face.

„ _You_ can't see her, because you're blind."

Albus snorted in the little corner that he took with him everywhere he went, while Lily's eyebrows rose high up into the air.

„We're blind?" She asked, to which the oldest of the three gave a nod.

Albus rolled his eyes and knocked the chair back on all four of its legs, diminishing part of the distance he had created between them and letting the candle spread light over his features.

„And you want to tell us that _you_ do?" His voice was derisive, but James simply lifted his chin a little higher so that he could look down at them over his glasses.

„Yes."

Albus slumped back in his chair until it hit the wall again and Lily leaned even more over the table, getting as far as it was possible without her having to lift her bottom off the chair.

„How come?" She asked in awe.

„Oh _come on_ , Lily." Albus said, „He's pulling your nose. Not that that's hard to do."

He grumbled the last part, but Lily still caught it. As if burned, she sank back into her chair and pouted.

„Shut up, Al." James threw at his brother, giving him a kick under the table. He missed his leg, but caught the chair instead, and with a loud yelp, Albus was flying to the ground along with the wooden chair.

In an instant, both remaining siblings were out of their seats and on the ground next to a dumbfounded Al. Somewhere above them, a light clicked on and Ginny Potter pulled on her dark green dressing robe and made her way downstairs to see what the noise was all about.

When the top stair creaked, both James and Lily turned in its direction and then at each other.

Unanimously they grabbed Al and were setting him on his feet. Al made to say something, but was stopped when James' palm landed across his mouth. He let out a muffled noise of disapproval, but joined his legs in as they dragged him away from the kitchen and into the living room.

When Ginny entered the kitchen, what she saw gave her a pretty good idea as to what might have caused her untimely awakening.

It was obvious to her after fourteen years of being a mother, and much more importantly the mother of James, that though she didn't know that her three children were currently hiding behind a couch, they had something, if not everything to do with the fact that there was a burning candle dripping wax onto her grandmothers old table and a chair lying on the floor in a way chairs used to lie around Fred and George.

She sighed and, determined not to be like her very own mother in times like these, straightened the chair and blew out the candle.

When James and Lily confirmed to a still shocked Al that the coast was clear, the three children made their way up the stairs the quietest they could, quite oblivious to the fact that Ginny Potter was smiling into her pillow and shaking her head at their fruitless attempt to keep Lily's stomps and Albus's hushed curses every time he tripped silent. The only one of them she would not have said was there by what she heard, but knew was there by experience, was James, but even he gave himself up in the end when he growled out something offensive at a complaining Al.

When Lily lay down to bed that night, she looked around at her room. She was back here again after nearly a year of living away, and wondered if she would ever get used to the light blue walls and the absence of her room-mates.

It was the first night back home, and instead of letting the tidal wave of memories lull her to sleep, she closed her eyes upon the thought of there being a totally different Lily sleeping in her bed, somewhere far, far away, but still so close.

Non-existent to her senses.


	2. 2 Somewhere Else

_A/N [21/10/16]: Heyo! I'm back, fresh new, new year, new obsessions, new distractions, new crushes - whatnot. The important thing is that I'm here and I'm a-continuing on. So enjoy, mah readers, please._

 _IN THE SOUND OF SILENCE._

 _Cheers,_

 _MissSlytherpuff (YES I CHANGED IT SAY HELLOO!)_

Other Ways

Chapter Two

 _Somewhere Else_

 **Mid-Autumn, 2003**

It was six years after the Battle of Hogwarts, so dubbed by the whole of Wizarding Britain, that Harry saw Lavender Brown again.

He hadn't recognised her at first when she stepped into the office with an application in hand, asking to join the Auror training program. His shock had been prominent, but the young woman's words claiming her identity were confirmed not only by the name printed on her application form, but also by the thick, stark white scars that formed the oval shape of a man's jaw on the side of her neck.

Instantly, he felt guilty, realising he had never known if she survived the bite or not.  
Memories he tried to supress every night before he went to sleep flooded the forefront of his mind. The smell of blood filled his nose and the taste of fear covered his tongue so thick he almost choked on his own saliva. The moment passed, just as it always did, and he offered her his most sincere smile, as if that could make up for everything. He gestured for her to sit down.

Lavender had changed over the years. Her soft blond hair and light blue eyes had stayed the same as ever, but the way she curled the language she spoke inside her mouth, as if kissing the air around her just by whispering, the way she held her head, steady, fierce, resolute, yet quiet and held back... the war had changed her just as it had changed him.

She expressed to him her reasons for becoming an Auror, and he stared at the classamate he had once had, surprised by what had come of the airy, clingy, desperate teenager he had once known her to be. So when her interview had ended, and she was standing up to leave, he heard himself ask a question he had not planned on asking.

"Would you like to go for lunch some time?"

He could have sworn a tiny piece of the Lavender he used to know (however scarcely) lit up in her eyes.

"I'm free at the moment." She replied, and before he could think better of it, he was informing Auror Ranwell that he was taking the rest of the day off and opening the door to a not particularly fancy chinese diner. They were only going as old aquaintances, after all.

It showed during their time spent together, as they both ate and talked and laughed – Lavender was no longer the boy-obsessed, high-pitch blond girl she used to be. At least not by far as much.

They had taken to strolling the park nearby when the matter of family was brought up. Harry confessed that it was now two months since his break-up with Ginny, only to realise that, just as the rest of the Wizarding World, Lavender already knew. She in turn told him what he hadn't heard of – she spoke of the man she had dated last, and how that affair had ended because of the man being insufferably clingy. Harry laughed quietly, it seemed so absurd.

"Clingy?" he asked, his voice teasing. He had half a mind to say the words 'Won-Won' out loud, but it proved to be needless, as Lavender blushed in the cheeks all the same.  
"I was sixteen, Harry. I had different priorities than I do now. There are things in life that... change you." She gave him a grave look. "I guess you'd know best."

It was seven years after the battle of Hogwarts, so dubbed by the whole of Wizarding Britain, and Harry still had trouble sleeping at night.  
Sometimes in the night he would reach out, calling one name or another to the empty side of his bed. Sometimes he would see the red hair, the silky curtain that would lay upon the pillow. Sometimes he would call her name. That was perhaps the reason why he was now faced with a situation he couldn't fathom.  
Granted, it was already a few months since the initial shock had kicked in, and it had taken him well half of the time to get used to the idea, but it was still so strangely surreal when he thought about it.  
The day he had taken Lavander out to that chinese restaurant had changed it all. Perhaps if he hadn't offered to make her a cup of tea, he would never have had to wake up to see blonde hair all over the place that had once been covered with fire.  
The fire red hair of Ginny Weasley.  
It was two weeks later, when Harry had finally found the guts to knock on the Burrow's front door and join the Weasleys for lunch, with Ginny away in London where she now lived alone, that he had come home and glanced at the bag of clothes Lavender had taken with her for the weekend.  
When she walked out of the bathroom, he knew something was wrong. Her blond hair was let down past her shoulders, her light blue eyes were misty, as if she were not quite present.  
His hand fell to the stick in her hand.  
She was pregnant.


End file.
